


Just a Game

by fleetofthewind



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe
Genre: (Brief) Mild Torture, And enjoys cliffhangers, Angst, Because the author is sadistic, Budapest Included, Captivity, F/M, Game of Lives, Horror Elements, Hurt/Comfort, Lots of Angst, Lots of Whump, More Hurt Than Comfort, So many references I can't count, Suspense, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-30
Updated: 2012-11-30
Packaged: 2017-11-19 21:18:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleetofthewind/pseuds/fleetofthewind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The way the other man had phrased it, he almost could've tricked himself into thinking that he was sitting down for a friendly game of chess, or some other harmless match. This was no friendly game. In fact, Steve thought, as he reached forward with shaking hands to make the next move, this was probably the most important game of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Just a Game

_It's just a game_ , Steve told himself. _Just a game._ _Like you used to play back then, even before the War, before everything else. Get your act together, Rogers—they're counting on you._

But who was he kidding? Most of them thought he was dead. They didn't know that he was sitting in a simple metal chair facing a simple metal desk in a simple metal room less than a hundred feet away, They didn't know that he was wagering their lives; their pain—they didn't know he was in a near cold sweat trying to win this impossible game with an impossible price and failing so horribly. They didn’t know that his concentration was slipping further and further away as the stress and his own pains overcame him until he could barely hear himself think.

Steve glanced up at the man across the table, lifting his head from the crook of his wrist. The man had a ghost of a smile twisted on his almost translucent pale lips. The man met his eyes, blue to blue, and was waiting, smiling, smirking—and he _knew_. He knew and he _fed_ off the fact that he did-- that Steve's mind and game were slowly slipping. Cracking.

Steve knew it too.                  

There was another muffled shout that flooded the room from its unseen speakers and Steve nearly jumped, flinch rolling off him in his sudden reminded over reality. His eyes flickered unconsciously around the room, as if searching for the source—god, he would do _anything_ to be on the other side of those walls—but his eyes found their way back to his opponent's own and Steve instantly knew it was a warning. The time to make his next move was running out.

_Focus. Block it out._

Block out the thoughts of his impeding, inevitable, failure. 

 _It's just game_ , Steve told himself again, blinking the cloud furiously out of his mind as he reached for the small metal pawn in front of him. Pretending would be the only way he could get through this without snapping, he had to— _had_ to focus. He had to pretend. For their sakes, he had to pretend. Pretend, believe, it _was_ just a game. And the way he'd phrased it, Steve could almost believe it. And later, when it was all over, when it was all said and done, when they were all home safe, he could deal with the reality that it wasn't. 

But for now, Steve grasped the key with shaking hands, took a deep breath, and prayed. 

* * *

 

**IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII**

**Just a Game.**

_Fleet of the Wind_

**IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII**

* * *

It was actually a fairly dull day. Well, dull for them—the group that called themselves the Avengers. Mother Earth didn't need saving from some incredibly aggressive alien fleet, New York was not in danger of being destroyed—no Military Base had been invaded by small and incredibly agressive hoard of rabbits, and no bank was being held up by some amateur super powered teenager with a attention complex and enough angsting hormones to power a small city. North Korea was not pondering missile-launches, L.A.X. was not at risk of some massive terrorist attack, and the world—or so it appeared—was at peace.

This meant, of course, the quiet relaxed manner at Stark Towers had to be broken.

_"STARK!"_

There was a crash and an enraged shout from Natasha, quickly followed by a roll of half-fearful half-deranged cackle from said man whose name had just been snarled. There was another crash, and a sharp _OW_! and more laughing and fury emanating from a nearby room.

Steve sighed, staring deep into his coffee mug as if it could somehow save him from whatever chaos was about to break loose. Not for the first time in his life, he regretted his descion to not take the coffee—not that it would even help, considering his metabolism, but old habits and all—back to his large (and private) floor instead of the communal kitchen. 

Clint poked his head in the kitchen doorway; obviously just having woken up—hair messily combed and wearing the same shirt Steve has seen him in last night. He had a half glazed look of sleep in his eyes, quickly sparked to life by the mischievous glint that usually had all the junior agents back at SHIELD HQ blanching and Coulson already tending to a budding headache. All in one glance that Clint shot him, Steve could tell that the assassin was asking him where the sounds were coming from—as they were obviously not here—and that if Steve didn't tell him, Clint would eventually find them anyways, though he would be irritated to have missed what exactly made ever composed _Natasha_ shriek _and_ miss Tony running for his life. All in one look.

Steve sighed and jerked a hand over his shoulder, gesturing to the sitting room just off of the kitchen. The archer's grin grew significantly, and he raced by Steve so fast the Captain almost missed the camera clutched in his hands. Trying not to think about what was probably happening (such as Stark getting murdered or mauled) in the next room over, Steve tried to return to his paper and coffee.

Bruce walked in a few seconds later, blinking sleepily over his wire-rimmed glasses with a gaze that clearly said he hadn't gone to bed in the first place, probably having spent the night up with Tony in one of their labs (explaining why both of them were even up here in the first place). He plopped down across the wooden table from Steve and the soldier slowly pushed the mostly full coffee pot across the table to the scientist, not glancing up from his paper, who took it and poured himself a cup.

There was another yell and a few unintellgable garbles of speech and arguing, overlapping too much for even Steve's enhanced hearing to make out in the room over.  He sighed heavily, this time pulled up from his paper and he traded Bruce's amused stare before returning back to his article and raising his voice to say with great exasperation, "Natasha—please don't permenently incapacitate your teamate, despite whatever he did to deserve it. Tony—whatever you did, please apologize for it."

There was a muffled response and a high-pitched whine quickly followed by a strangled yell and a burst of laughter from Clint. More conversation followed and Steve listened, but like most of the scrimmages in the tower—it seemed to have resolved itself within a few minutes and he returned his full attention to the paper lying out on the table in front of him. This was how life was in Stark Towers—unpredictable, tense, but never boring. It had first just started out with Bruce living here with Tony, the engineer having somehow managed to convince Bruce to crash here for a few days after their battle with Loki instead of hiking it outa there back to India or Guatemala or wherever he was planning on hiding himself in. The few days had eventually turned into a few weeks and how Tony had managed it, no one was quite sure—and during those few weeks, Clint and Natasha had somehow been dragged into residence as well in which the details Steve had left polietely untouched. Stark Towers eventually had become a sort of an unofficial base for the Avengers that was well equipped, an easy launch point, and a hell of a lot more comfortable than most S.H.I.E.L.D. agent residences. Eventually, Steve found himself living here as well, although he was no more clear on the details of how exactly that had happened than those of the previous stories before. Thor returned from Asgard—in his own words, to 'honor his vow to protect this Midgardian World from harm alongside 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes'.' Apparently, some of the people higher up in S.H.I.E.L.D's defense hadn't taken kindly to his return and after a messy debate—Thor was eventually allowed to stay. The Asgardian was not to be left out, and soon took up residence at Stark Towers as well, finally settling the Tower as the unofficial Avenger's Base and/or Residence, although he often spent time in New Mexico as well with Jane.

It was... an interesting experience, to say the least. Certainly nothing like Steve had ever done before. The Helicarrier had been mind-blowing enough and Stark Tower was a different but equally modern venue. Between the first time he heard JARVIS to YouTube... life was never boring. Missions were frequent—varying from small missions from SHIELD for only one or two of them, to handling hostile threats that required the whole time—but not today. Not for the past few weeks either. It made the solider rather nervous, feeling on edge as if this were the calm before the storm. Everyone else had slowly relaxed—telling him to relax, enjoy it while it lasted—but he just couldn't shake the feeling that something horrible was coming. Something horrible and big.

But then again, he was probably just being paranoid.

Paranoid, or highly insightful.

Either way, Steve wasn't suprised when they were called in. Fury’s video briefing was short, brief, and to the point. The team had gathered around a large flat-screen in a sort of office-looking room on the fifteenth level of the building. The mission was supposed to be rather simple—there was a suspicous class-C building they had discovered and they wanted the Avengers to take down and neutralize. It was supposed to be rather simple, the inside group was suspected to be armed—but not too heavily—and large—but not too large. In fact, the only reason they were sending in the Avengers at all in opposed to a regular team was the suspicion of mutant involvement. This raised the threat level up a few notches, but the mutant involvement was suggested to be low-threat and possibly even nonexistent. It was a supposed to be a simple in/out mission that could potentially have them back in time for Shwarma if they were careful.

They suited up sans Thor, who was being called in from New Mexico and could hopefully meet up with them there and loaded their transport. The flight took only an hour or two, the base in Southern Quebec, and with Tony flying up ahead, Clint up in the cockpit, and Thor on his way, the inside of the jet felt quiet and aphrensive. Steve managed to keep up some small talk with Bruce and Natasha, but neither really pursued the matter and for that, the quiet, he was grateful. Something about this mission, he realized, even as they landed and disboarded, felt wrong. And as he and the smaller group of four moved out onto the forestry grounds, Steve felt a bit more… solemn than usual. Grave, even. He pushed the feeling off as apprehension and suspicion to the supposedly easy task—but there was always a pang in the back of his mind, and it was pang that would not leave him.

Steve ignored that pang.

And he would regret it for weeks to come.

 

**IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII**

“You know what I love about this whole thing?” Tony chattered through the earpiece while Clint reached back over his shoulder for his next arrow. “How Fury says that this one is actually going to be relatively simple and easy and then he totally forgets to mention the fact that they have _giant robot_ as a last-resort security system.”

The edge of Clint's lips pulled into a smirk, pulling back the strong and letting the arrow loose, watching it briefly as it seamlessly buried itself into a weak chink in the robot’s arm joint and promptly exploded, sending the enormous thing staggering from balence in the explosion. They had entered the castle-like facility with little to no issues. Really, any combination of two on the team could’ve taken the whole base down. It was after they had taken down the base and moved into some sort of court-yard with the leader in cuffs had things gotten… messy.

Out of nowhere, a gigantic robot thing had burst through one of the high stone walls. It looked eerily out of place among the falling snow and the medieval like brick of the base walls. It was probably thirty-feet high, a little under the height of the stone walls, and rather like it had come out of the mind of a six-year old's dream fantasy. Iron Man and Hawkeye had teamed up on it for a while, but after a few hard after a few hard hits to the Mark VIII and Clint's arrows bouncing off the robot’s exterior (and nearly taking down Cap as he made his way out of the hole in the wall and into the courtyard), the rest of the team had joined the fight.

At the combined force of the five present Avengers (as they took down the base so quickly Clint had only time to make one Game of Thrones reference before it was over), repulsers, arrows, shield, rage, and grenade-launcher combined, the Robot was slowly wearing down.

Clint readied another arrow, rigged to explode a few seconds after impact and drew it back from his spot atop a snow-covered tower about twenty-feet above the robot’s head. His eyes carefully flickered along the robot’s body, before he truely noticed how the joints and plates of the thing were barely holding together and lowered his bow, deactivating the charge. The rest of the team seemed to have the same idea, all drawing back as Hulk surged forward with an eager snarl on his face and malice in his eyes—watching silently as he literally tore the robot apart limb by limb with a new ease.

Tony was still jabbering in his ear, Clint finally letting his zone of concentration collapse and tuning back in. “—and there he goes. Oh, good—Big Green's almost done with his new toy. Can we go home now?”

Steve sighed heavily. “Hawkeye—all clear from up there?”

The archer put a boot on the edge of the snow-topped half-wall that lined the tower’s edge and peered downward. He could make out the bright red and blue of the soldier easily against the snowy ground amongst leather black, gold and red—and of course, bright green. Clint let his eyes sweep once around the courtyard—before nodding, even though he knew that Steve couldn’t see it.

“We're good up here, Cap,” he replied, arrow hooking back over his shoulder to slide seamlessly into his quiver and boot pushing himsef back onto solid ground. 

“Good,” Steve replied, sounding as weary as he always did after a fight, even if he wasn't physically exhausted. “Then we can make our way up to the rendezvous spot and wait for the dispatch team to send someone to pick us up. Widow- you think you could call ahead and maybe tell them Thor can go back home? I think we're done here—” 

He went on and Clint tuned out, backing away from the edge of the tower and glancing absent mindedly around the castle. Quite honestly, he would be surprised if anyone had gotten hurt more than a bruise or so—the worse Clint himself had gotten was a papercut, and he was fairly certain that was from this morning when Tony had chucked that magazine at his head for his help in the earlier scuffle.  The archer gazed about the rooftop, musing, blinking the lightly falling snow out of his eyelashes. Easy mission—nice entertainment, if anything, for the week. The team was already moving on from topics of post-mission crap to what they were getting for takeout, and Clint was about to interject and add his own opinion when—

_—flash._

Clint's head snapped to the left as something bright caught his eye in the dim sun. At first, he thought it was the remains of the robot catching in the sunlight as Hulk stomped it to dust—but no, the Hyde version of Banner was standing still in the snow, squinting down at Steve as the Captain made his way over, breathing heavily like an irritated bull. 

Slowly, Clint let his eyes scour the rooftops again—letting the field of his vision expand and take in the tiny details of the rooftop.

“—you ready to go, Big Guy?” Tony was saying, and Clint could almost hear the smirk in his voice as Hulk turned and looked at the one he so neutrally regarded as ‘Tin-Man’. “I’m hungry—and if I had anything less than a perfect temperature inside this machine of mine I would also be complaining my ass off about the cold, which I bet you don't like much either, huh? So if you could let Bruce come on back out—"

“Cap—” Clint interrupted slowly, edge to his voice that made everyone instantly quiet.

“Hawkeye?”

That’s when the world exploded.

Or at least the world that Clint had been currently standing on. The archer, luckily, had seen the grenade coming dove to the side with a clenched jaw and hands shielding his face from the concussive force of the explosion. Within seconds, shouting had filled his ear-piece and Clint had rolled to his knees—throwing one out and letting an arrow fly all within a fraction of a second. He swore in a muttered slur of words, letting another arrow fly and find its mark in what seemed like mid-air, blood bursting from empty space and shifting illusions. 

“Hawkeye, report!" Steve’s voice was at a painfully loud volume, making the archer grimace under the flow of demanding questions from all members of the team.

“I’m okay—” A bullet of some kind whizzed by his ear, and he ducked his head, “— _shit_. No. I’m fine. It looks like there was a straggler, a sniper of some kind. I couldn’t see him, god, I _can’t_ see him—he’s wearing some kind of reflective armor or—”

There was a roar from Hulk, something strangled that made Clint’s blood run cold.

 _“Hulk!”_ Someone shouted.

Clint grit his teeth, let another arrow fly in the direction he had seen the sniper, before darting across the exposed platform of the tower. A bullet pinged off of the stone above his head, and Barton ducked his head before he reached the half-wall of the tower and half threw himself over it to see what was going on. Straightening before he actually fell, the archer’s eyes widened.

Hulk was staggering. _Staggering_. It was something Clint had never seen before, and it scared the hell out of him. It took only a second for his sharpened eye to pick out the massive array of darts sticking out of a throbbing vein of Hulk's back—and only a second more to note how rapidly the guy was morphing. Green was swirling nauseously on the thick skin until it began to give way to a much paler and more human color and the huge form of the Hulk. The half-man, half-hulk began to shrink rapidly, legs twisting and form swaying dangerously, until a half-naked (only half, they had made it a primary objective long ago to find the man some pants that stayed on after battle) Bruce slumped forward limply into the snow like a puppet who’s strings had been cut.

Natasha, who was closest to him, had made a move to catch him before he completely fell—but with a sharp warning from Clint, _“—Nat!—”_ she leapt back just in time to avoid a bullet that sunk into the ground just a few inches from where she had been standing.

_“Where is he?”_

_“Cap!”_ Clint shouted another warning, the barrel of the gun on the rooftops just visible behind something that resembled a chimney aiming for the Captain’s chest.

Steve ducked behind his shield just as the bullet fired, causing it to reflect off of the shield with a sharp _ping!_ Clint wasted no time, standing and pulling back his bow almost vertical in the air. He let the arrow fly, and let out a huff of satisfactory relief as he saw the gun dip dangerously onto the roof tiles. He lowered his bow—

It had been a distraction—all the grenades and bullets, how they were just easy enough to block without getting suspicious—Clint raged at himself internally for not seeing it earlier. He ducked behind the wall again, swiveling on raised feet to peer around the rooftop. There could be any number of snipers positioned around the perimeter—and Clint was the one with the best view and the only one who had eyes sharp enough to see through whatever sort of reflective armor they were wearing.

 _But I_ can’t _see anything from here!_ The assassin thought through gritted teeth. _Not while cowering behind a crumbling wall._ Some part of the man told him that getting hit wouldn’t solve anything either, and standing just might do him in—but if there was going to be any hope of the rest of the team not being taken down like rats in a trap, there had to be drastic measures taken.

“…ark—get up high, see if you can spot them with your sensors. Widow—find some cover, _now_. Hawkeye, you still with us?—Hawkeye? _Barton!”_

Clint stood. Instantly, his world opened up—taking in the small imprints of footprints on the snowy rooftops, tiny puffs of hot air from invisible mouths, the slight shimmer from reflective plates as their wearers moved ever so slightly—and he began firing off words and arrows so fast he wasn’t even sure they made sense at all. “Captain—one to your three o’clock and two directly ten and thirteen feet to their left, wait, actually—only one,” said one fell well an arrow through his chest, ”—all on the rooftops in the center of the slope. Nat—two coming up fast behind you and another directly above your head and three feet to the left on the roof. Sta—”

The archer cut himself off as a grenade came his way. He blinked, momentarily confused—he had gotten the impression that they wanted to capture them alive. But then again, Hulk was very hard to kill when he was smashing you into the ground. Were those darts even full of tranqs like he had thought?—was Bruce even _breathing_? But there was a bigger, more imminent, issue at hand and he turned back to the grenade and launched it away from him with a sharp kick just a _half_ a second too late, sending him launching backwards from the heated blast.

Clint swore, gasping, feet scraping unbalanced against the half-wall edge, trying to keep a grip on his bow so he could maybe pull a rappel stunt and not go crashing three stories into the quickly approaching ground. No use, the ground was coming much too quick—Clint closed his eyes and his stomach lurched—maybe this time he wouldn’t break any bones if rolled on impact—

—instead of hitting something hard and wet and cold, Clint blinked in surprise as he hit something equally as cold and hard but not nearly as painful and, _dear God_ , did not know when to shut up.

“What is this, the _second_ time I’ve saved your ass today, my feathered friend?” Tony asked, amusement clear even in the bland monotone of his electronic voice as he shifted his grip around Clint’s torso. "We need to get you some boot repulsors or something at this rate."

“My hero,” Clint muttered. “We can practice jumping off of three-story buildings when we’re done here.”

Stark laughed and Clint could’ve almost sworn he heard Natasha give a ‘ _tsk’_ of amusement. The man seemed about to say something as they approach the ground rapidly but there was a flash in the side of the archer’s vision and assumedly Tony’s too—because the Iron Man deadpanned a swear, before promptly dropping Clint the remaining five feet into the snow.

There was a loud boom, and _CRASH_ , and Clint jerked his head upward as soon as he landed in the snow—watching in a sort of horror as a missile crashed hard into the armor, sending it spiraling backwards as it latched into the shoulder joint it had targeted. Had it not been so serious, Clint might’ve laughed at the cartoon comical edge to the picture as the suit spun out of balenced control before crashing with a small explosion into the far wall. The slid impassively down the wall and collapsed in a heap of metal, iron, and smoke.

 _This… this isn’t right._ Clint took a huge staggering breath, eyes dazed and rather disbelieving, staggering upwards from where he had landed in the snow. How could it be that they were being taken down so easily? The set-up, while brilliant, shouldn’t be able to take down the supposed ‘Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’. They used surprise tactics and invisible armor, but that shouldn’t be all it took. This wasn’t… it just wasn’t possible.

Was it?

Clint snapped back to his senses and scooped downwards, grabbing his bow firmly in one hand and righting himself. He was falling back, running backwards to the wall and to minimal cover behind some crumbled parts of stone and nailing another sniper in what he thought might be the throat. No mercy now—this was getting far too dangerous.

Steve had given up trying to see if Tony was up for the fight, the silence that followed his shout and the strange cracks and still burning missile driving in the armor said it all, and Clint could just see the tip of his blue head across the courtyard from behind some fallen pillar. The archer couldn’t see Natasha at first, he knew she was there—he just didn’t know _where_ exactly—and didn’t spot her until she spoke.

Like, directly behind him.

“Rogers—they’ll be aiming for you next,” the assassin said, both in his the comm and his actual ear.

Clint jumped—something scarcely possible in his crouched position—and whirled around. Natasha was staring at him with a raised eyebrow before crawling sleekly up to his side, using the same crumbled stone as cover.

“ _Jesus_ , Nat,” he muttered, turning back to the task at hand. “Scared the hell out of me.”

“I think that’s why there are only three of us still coherent enough to stand,” Natasha replied darkly, shifting on the balls of her feet in the crouch, snow crunching under her feet, and peering over the stone.

 Steve’s voice crackled through the comm—heavy and worried, “Why are they going for me next?”

“Because they’re taking us down in order of strength,” Natasha replied simply.

“Um, excuse me,” Clint said, rather offended.

Natasha shot him a look. “Do you really think you could beat the Hulk at arm-wrestling?” She pressed. “They’re taking us down in the order of brute firepower, not in order of who would win a fight, or who is the most agile. Think about it—if you had to fight all five of us, and you could choose one of the five to remove from the fight—would you really choose me?”

“Of course,” he deapanned.

Another icy look was sent his way from the corner of his vision as Clint drew back an arrow. “…or maybe Hulk,” he admitted. “But why Stark before me? I mean, without the suit, he’s just as squishy as the rest of us.”

“Stop thinking objectively,” Natasha hissed, wincing appreciatively as a shriek was heard and a man—flicking in and out of focus as a shield knocked him plain off the roof— “And start thinking _now_. Tony is wearing his suit _now_. The fight is happening _now_. They are taking us down _now_. We need to duck— _NOW_.”

Clint blinked once before very quickly rolling onto his knees and ducking his head down as close to his legs as he could. The impact of the missile flying over their heads and into the wall behind them shook Clint to his core, making him shiver in obligation. He slowly sat up, ears ringing from the loud echo, and sent a vague explosive arrow in the direction from where the missile had come from, Natasha following up with two shots from her pistol.

“So… I’m next?” Steve asked breaking into the conversation.

“Yes,” Natasha said confidently. “So you need to lay low for a while—and Clint and I can take out as many as possible before they try to switch tactics.”

“…or…” Steve began, slowly, and no, no that was a dangerous tone of voice thatClint knew and  _hated._ _  
_

“…Steve…” Natasha stopped her flow of startlingly accurate bullets to crouch down low, pressing the ear-piece more firmly into her ear. “No.”

“…we could exploit it,” The soldier suggested without pause. “If they want me, why would they miss an opportunity for a shot? I can run out, like I’m making my way over to you—or to Bruce or Tony or someone—and they all fire. You can see where the shots are coming from and take them all out in a swift swoop.”

Clint paused. He had a good point, and objectively as a plan, it wasn't a terrible plan—

“—that is a _terrible_ plan,” Natasha hissed. “We don’t even know if they want you alive. They’ve been throwing grenades at us, Steve—what makes you so sure they won’t light you up the second you make a run for it?”

“And what else should we do?” the Captain challenged, not as a suggestion for ideas, but as a point against her argument. “Sit here until they actually hit me?—and then move onto you? We can’t let that happen—there’s no telling what they’ll do when everyone’s down for the count.”

“New plan idea? One without a sacrifice play?” Clint suggested hopefully, furrowing his brow in frustration as another of his arrows pinged off of the roof-tiles and into empty space.

They both ignored him.

“Steve,” Natasha hissed, “I’m not going to let you run out there and have to explain to Fury how we lost you of all people to some half-witted idea.”

“It just might work, though,” The soldier said firmly—in his ‘self-sacrificing heroics' voice with just a touch of resigned 'for the good of humanity' that formed a dangerous potion of what would likely be death. “We don’t know what they injected Bruce with—it could be poison for all we know. We need to at least try something new—this hiding behind the shadows and hoping to fire lucky isn’t working. If they're smart, they'll flank us. And what will we do then?”

“Then try something else!” Natasha argued, making Clint want to stare. Natasha was usually pretty good on following orders—she was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent after all—and, besides Bruce (who didn’t even really count) she was probably the one who spoke the least on missions and argued the least at Steve’s orders, despite their costs. “You’re being reckless— _goddammit_ , you’re acting like Stark!”

“I take… _offense_ … to that statement…” Tony suddenly rejoined the world, voice dangerously slurred. The Iron Man suit was shifting blearily in the snow, a slow creak of metal, before Tony reached up and yanked the remains of the shattered missile out of the joint to his armor.

“Oh, good, you’re alive,” Clint said dryly, successfully hiding the relief in his voice as another arrow was let loose. “You’re just in time for the party. Can you please tell Steve that making a suicide run is a bad idea?”

Tony made a strangled ‘ _meeeh’_ sound, and promptly keeled over again.

“Or not.”

“Clint, get ready,” Steve said, making the archer hesitate.

“Steve…” Natasha said warningly.

“I’m making a run for it on the count of three—” Steve continued, and Clint could just make out the shifting blur of the soldier on the other side of the courtyard. “Watch the roof, Clint. One.”

“Clint!” Natasha snarled, turning on him.

“Two.”

The archer hesitated for another moment, before shrugging helplessly.

 “If you can’t beat em,” Clint muttered, shooting Natasha an apologetic glance as he notched an arrow. “Join em.”

“Three!”

Clint was so focused on the rooftop tiles, searching anxiously for the remaining targets—that he didn’t even feel the tiny dart sink into his back.


	2. αlpha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lots of flashbacks and creepy old men. :3

Steve groaned as he was pulled back to consciousness, eyelids flickering as eyes began shifting underneath closed lids. His head was pounding, and the inside of his mouth felt as dry as chalk. 

_There had been a loud bang and a shout as Steve had made a dart across the courtyard. He quickly reached the other side of the courtyard and dove behind one of the large pillars that held up the overhang that covered the far side of the courtyard. To his surprise, he didn’t feel a pinch of a dart, or the blinding pain of a bullet, or the heat of a grenade. Sliding to the ground with his back against the gray stone pillar, Steve listened hard—but all he could hear was… nothing._

Most likely he had been drugged. That was pretty much all he could string together as a coherent thought. His limbs felt like they had been tethered to the ground, even though as Steve’s eyes slit open in the slightest he could blurrily make out that they had not. Whatever it was, it was something strong enough to knock him down and make him stay there—and for a very long time. How long exactly, he couldn’t tell, but judging on how cracked and chapped his lips were, it was fairly long.

_His breaths came out in puffs of warm air in front of his face, his slightly spent breaths the only sound he could make out. Other than that—silence. The sound of arrows flying through the air was usually quite silent, but Steve had a feeling that despite her avid protestations, Natasha would join in on taking the snipers down with her pistol._

_Even a silenced one made the slightest of noise._

Steve knew that he was lying on his side with his face pressed against the floor. The floor was cold and hard turning half of his face completely numb with chills. If not for his suit, Steve blearily figured he would be much colder—Tony had upgraded nearly all their suits to be ideal for extreme weather conditions. Well, except Thor’s—because he didn’t really need it and wouldn’t (probably very smartly) let Tony anywhere near his suit—and Bruce’s because, well, Bruce didn’t have a suit.

But still. He was cold. He hated being cold.

_Steve, with his shield held close to his chest and his knees drawn up as close to the shield as possible, risked glancing around the pillar and at the courtyard. It seemed empty, silent, snowflakes drifting gently and in small numbers to the snowy ground. Bruce and Thor lay unmoving in the snow, side an occasional tremor of shivering in Bruce’s body that Steve could just make out. Tony was still slumped up against the wall, armored head hanging limply down onto his chest. The solider drew back his head and shot his gaze as far as he could to the right, straining his body in attempt to get as close to the edge of the pillar, and could just make out the shapes of Clint and Natasha in the corner directly next to him from his position. Why hadn’t they fired? He had heard gunshots, but none quite like Natasha’s specialized ones, before—so why hadn’t they…?_

He couldn’t even move roll his head off the cold floor so his view of the world wouldn’t be so slanted and dizzying. Steve closed his eyes, trying to get through the fog of his brain, and tried to take a long inhale. Even this was a chore, and his shoulder’s shuddered and choked on a cough.

When he opened his eyes again, two blue specks barely seen through his half-lidded eyes—the world was swimming and blurry once more.

_Worry consumed him. Steve flicked his head back between the stone wall in front of him, and the spot where he could make out the still forms of the two said master assassins. Finally, Steve made up his mind and pulled himself to his feet using the pillar as leverage against his back. Another glance was given towards the still rooftops before Steve took a deep breath hugged the wall to his left shoulder, darting for their spot on the ground._

The room seemed to drop in temperature sharply all of a sudden, the only thing that forced Steve’s eyes to flutter back open. He hadn’t even realized he had shut them. Cold reminded him of water, cold water, and water of snow. Panic flooded through Steve’s sluggish limbs and adrenaline suddenly had him pushing up against the floor on his arms alone and half dragging himself across the floor. Snow reminded Steve of the courtyard—and the courtyard of blood.

So much blood.

_No bullet pierced his heart, no pain tore across his limbs, and Steve stumbled to a halt just above his two teammates from their spot in the ever-cold and what should have been white snow. Instead of white, most of it was red—a dark flowing red that made him choke and made his knees buckle in a frantic attempt to get to the ground closer, faster, sooner. Clint was twisted awkwardly against the crumbled stone block, eyes closed, hand clenched around something small and glass and empty; breathing shallow. Natasha laid on her back, her grown-out red curls spread out across the pale snow like a fiery halo, eyes opened and flickering left to right. Her breaths came out in short, sharp gasps, eyes locking with Steve’s as he scrambled to her side, as he tore her hands from their spot around her abdomen—from the spot where she was staining her hands a dark red with her own blood._

Steve was half-crawling across the floor. His legs just wouldn’t _work_ numb and dead-weight against his desperation to just _move_. There was a door there, he could see it—the faint outline of light against the steel walls, and he had to get there. He had to get out of this room, out of the cold, and _find_ them. _Help_ them. Steve wasn’t quite sure what he needed to help them, no—save them—from, his brain was so fogged and his thoughts far from lucid, much less his reasoning or his memory. It was something important though; he could almost grasp it at the edge of his mind…

…something about wolves…

_“Natasha…” he breathed._

_She nodded dreamily, as if to say—_ that’s my name.

 _He could not find words beyond that. What_ could _he say? His mind was blanking, panicking—but it quickly snapped into focus._

_He knew what to do, or what he could do—but that was so very little and not enough, not enough—he dropped her hands, gently, very gently, and they automatically curled back towards the gushing hole in her stomach from a bullet so small but so, so, deadly. He pressed his own hands over her own, trying to apply as much pressure as possible without hurting her—oh, god, oh, god—he flinched at her wince of pain. Her face was pale, the tips of her lips the faintest hue of blue, shivering. “It’s going to be fine,” he told her, surprised at how firm and steady his voice was. “Soon as Stark gets his lazy ass up and off the floor he’ll go get help, or he’ll take you to the help and you’ll be fine, okay? You hear me?—Stark, I know you’re awake, so hurry up and get over here—”_

_“Cold,” Natasha said, voice barely above a whisper._

He gave up trying to think of the reason and just _moved_. Or, he tried to—but already he was exhausted in his very short crawl towards the door. It seemed so far away… and his limbs were trembling, collapsing—his head was growing so heavy.

 _Steve’s heart plummeted. “It’s cold only because it’s snowing,” he said firmly, trying to meet her blue eyes that seemed to be unable to lock with his. “You’re not allowed to be cold otherwise. You’re not_ allowed _to die,” he said steadily, reaching to tear a lower part of his uniform off for cloth. “The Black Widow’s not allowed to be taken down by a bullet.”_

 _Steve tore a large bit of cloth off his leg, and looked back to Natasha. “You’re not_ allowed _to be cold—”_

 _“No,” she whispered, or mouthed—he couldn’t tell. “Cold to snow…” she was gasping now, barely getting out the word. “Snow to_ _winter…”_

Winter to wolves. Steve’s arms failed him.

_“Wolves…” her head slid slightly to the side, Steve suddenly jolting out of his rapt attention to her and pressing down his palm more firmly across the wound, blood seeping in between the cracks of his fingers. “…pack.”_

Pack… His head slipped and hit the metal below as his arms crumbled out from underneath him.

_“…to leader.”_

Leader… to…

_Natasha reached up and caught his hand gently before it reached her stomach. Her eyes flickered down towards the hand, and her other blood-soaked hand reached up to catch it as well. Steve watched her silently, brokenly, as her mouth cracked open in the slightest and a she said, voice hardly more than a breath of air, “…leader… to…”_

_Her finger traced over his palm, eyes glazed, from the top right corner, across the palm until it reached the center of the bottom, curling up along the left side, and sloping down along the middle to finish with a curl. Then her hand slipped down his arm and a breath left her lips in a_ whoosh _and her eyes unfocused to a reflection of the ever falling snow._

 _Leader… to…_ The door in front of his eyes, slipping shut, opened with a sliding _whoosh._ From the slanted view that Steve called his eyes, from the tunnel vision the drugs were creating, adapting to his rapid metabolism, Steve could make out dark black shoes walking to stand in front of him, silver cane clasped directly between the two shoes.

_His breath left him. He couldn’t breathe. Natasha stared past him, forever past time, mouth still slightly open as if the last word on her warning was still on her lips. Steve let go of her hand. Was Barton even breathing beside him?_

_He couldn’t bring himself to look._

_But, before there were hands all over him, before the rage overtook him and he was destroying the hands, the dozens of hands, before a mask was shoved across his face and darts pricked his skin and people and dark spots swarmed over him, Steve sat there silently. Unable to breathe._

_It was silent._

_And he was completely,_

_and utterly,_

_alone._

And before Steve allowed the drugs to take him once more, he saw his own hand reached out in front of his face, palm faced towards him—and he saw the faint outline of Natasha’s blood, her warning, that she had left on his hand. Top, across, up, across, curl.

_Leader to…_

**_α_ ** _lpha._

**IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII**

**Just a Game.**

**_α_ **

**IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII**

The next time Steve woke, he was still lying on his side on the metal floor. The floor was still cold, and his palm was still out above his head—but there was no blood, no reference that he got, and no hidden code.

Steve wondered for a moment if it had even been there at all.

Oh, God— _Natasha_. The thought of her just made him want to curl up in a ball there on the floor and just _die_. She was dead. _Dead_. Yet another person he had watched die in front of him, and he could’ve stopped it too. Somehow—maybe if he had played a little smarter, ran a little faster, tried a little harder—just like Bucky. Maybe if he had listened to her before he had run, they would all still be fighting hard or joking over _shwarma_ or something. Something other than wishing they had killed him instead because he didn’t know if he could take another failure, another death, another person he had lost just after getting to know them.

He wished his headache was back, or the blessed gift of a clouded head, so he wouldn’t have to think anymore. He wished he could just stop thinking—because, God knows, that only gets people killed.

The rest of them… the rest of the Avengers… were they still alive?

He didn’t even know.

He _needed_ to know.

Slowly, the solider sat up. His limbs were still heavy, and his movements still rather sluggish, but his mind was cursedly clear. Glancing around hollowly, he took in the room. It was a sort of hexagon shape, the walls made entirely of some sort of dark gray steel, maybe fifteen feet on each length of the room and ten feet high. There was a door at the wall facing Steve, or, at least, some kind of opening in the wall. He could just make out a faint outline of light streaming in through the cracks that made the outline of the rectangular door.

Unsteadily, Steve pulled himself to his feet, blinking rapidly as the head-rush that followed gave him tunnel vision, and he rather staggered to the door—the effects of the drugs still lingering in his legs. He pressed a hand to the outline of the door, palm up, in some desperate hope that the door would open for him and it would lead out and away out of this nightmare he was living.

The door didn’t move.

Steve’s shoulders sagged and his forehead thumped against the door.

“Did you really expect that to work?” Came a cool voice.

Steve tensed. He had expected to be confronted by whoever had caused all this eventually, but not this quick. Not this soon. Not in the same room as a very angry, very sad, very drugged up Steve. When the soldier turned, a very stiff, controlled, turn, it was really only the spark of surprise that prevented him from turning, walking up to, and punching the figure in the face. Numerous times.

Steve had noticed the large, hexagonal, metal table in the room. He had noticed two chairs on opposite ends of the table, and he had noticed how carefully the table was positioned in the center of the room. He had not noticed, and was very surprised, to now see a person sitting in one of the chairs adjacent to the first. Steve knew very well that this… man… had not been there before he had turned around to investigate the door, and became reason number two that Steve did not immediately rush to attack the man.

The man sitting in the chair was staring at Steve with a… disdainfully confused look on his face across his folded hands ontop of the metal table-top. He was an older man, no—scratch that—very old man, with wrinkles as numerous as the stars. His hair was a wispy white that was rivaled only by the almost translucent blue paleness of the man’s skin. Veins popped out over his arms, starbursts of blue against the white. His eyes were a stone cold black, and they stared critically at Steve as if he was… disappointed.

“I had to try,” Steve said after a long moment, once again surprised at how steady his voice was.

“Hm,” The man said neutrally.

Another long silence fell, consisting entirely of the man staring, studying Steve, as if waiting for something at their locked gaze. All of a sudden finding the stare challenging, Steve stood a little straighter and locked his jaw, refusing to be the first to look away. He held the man’s gaze for nearly a full minute, gritting his teeth and waiting. Finally, a thin smile crossed the man’s face, almost a smirk.

“Steve Rogers,” He greeted, smile growing almost to a smirk. “How very nice to meet you at last.”

Steve stared stonily back.

The man gave a jerk of his head eyebrows, as if to say, _as expected,_ and sighed, lowering his gaze for a moment before returning it. “I suppose you’re wondering why you’re here.”

“Where’s my team?” Steve asked, ignoring the bait and taking a step forward, hands clenched at his sides.

The man arched an eyebrow. “You’re getting ahead of yourself. Do let me explain.”

The solider grit his teeth. “What do you want?”

The man paused, searching for the right word, staring down at a hand and examining it for a moment. Eventually, he said, rather slowly, “…a game.”

“A game.”

“A game,” The man confirmed, raising his eyes again and staring at Steve in what seemed like disinterest. “I play many games, but my most recent, and most favorite in category, had a rather… disappointing ending. So I decided I would find a new game, and a… less… _resourceful_ group of players.”

“A game,” Steve repeated flatly, before continuing humorlessly, “I warn you: I don’t know how to play chess well.”

The man gave another thin smile, holding what was now revealed and appeared to be a chess-piece up by its head with three of his fingers, staring at it in rather disinterest. “What a shame. You appeared to be the perceptive type. Perhaps I should’ve chosen Doctor Banner or Miss. Romanoff instead as an opponent instead. Maybe even Mr. Stark, though he doesn’t seem to have a good deal of patience—a very essential trait for a long game like this.”

A loud roaring sound filled Steve’s ears and he closed his eyes, clenching his fists so hard that the nails broke skin and drew blood. Slowly, he opened his eyes again, trying very, very hard not to leap at the man’s throat then and there. “I don’t think you’ll find it very easy to get me to agree to play this game of yours, _sir_ ,” Steve said through clenched teeth, malice practically oozing out of his last word.

“Hm. Another shame,” The man said disappointedly, raising his brow for the briefest of moments. Steve tensed, the man carefully placing the black chess-piece upon the table and sighing. “I don’t think your pawns will last very long against mine if no one makes their plays, Mr. Rogers.”

Instantly, the walls began to rise into the ceiling, all six except for the one directly behind them—revealing behind their steely exteriors to be fine panels of glass. Behind the five panels of glass came five more rooms, and likewise, five occupants.

Steve felt all the air leave his lungs as he saw them. Thor was kicking a wall frustratedly in the room directly to his left, Stark was irritably pacing in the room next to that—out of his suit, Bruce was sitting quietly against one of the walls in his room directly to Steve’s front, Clint was leaning coolly against the right wall in the room beside his, and sitting almost directly to his back against the wall in the room to Steve’s was Natasha—looking mildly bored but very much so alive.

The man must have caught Steve staring, because a smile playfully crossed his lips. “Oh, you thought she had _died_ ,” he said knowingly, smile growing to the faintest of smirks. “That’s understandable, I suppose—it was awfully difficult to keep her alive. I made sure, of course, that she didn’t—because otherwise I’d have an empty room and that’d just be too much of a bother to find another adequate player you know.”

Steve took a step towards the glass walls, eyes wide—before the man rolled his eyes. “Oh, you don’t think they can see you, do you? It’s called a one-way mirror, I’m not quite sure if you’re familiar with the term or not. Basically, one side can see through the mirror like a glass, and the other side sees only their reflection. Quite ingenuous, actually, and useful—after I made some adjustments so you and your… _super-serum_ couldn’t break through.”

The solider wasn’t quite listening at that point, but forced himself to, ignoring the overwhelming sense of relief that had just washed over him—seeing that his whole team was alive and well, which had been more than he had hoped for. Slowly he turned his gaze back to the man, taking a large breath and taking his hand off the glass wall of Clint’s room.

“Basically,” The man was saying, and the metal walls slowly returned back down onto the floor and covered the glass with resounding _thuds_ , “your objective is to navigate your pawns through a sort of maze that I have created. There are many different paths to the center of the maze, the exit. Each time you send a pawn through a room; there are consequences—both good and bad, but mostly bad. You’ll be able to see each pawn’s level of physical, mental, and spiritual health, as well as an inventory of their injuries. You’ll have to decide which of your pawns is most suited to enter a room, as the defeat of a room might open up paths for other pawns to avoid less than ideal rooms. The game ends when all the players that are still alive reach the center of the maze, or all the pawns die. Those that reach the center shall be released, and you shall be released regardless of the outcome.”

Steve tried to take this all in as best as he could, listening silently. Part of his brain was still calculating an escape plan, but the other part was desperately listening to the man’s words—trying to grasp all this and learn as much as he could.

“There are more rules, of course,” the man continued, reaching down under the table and retrieving a thin book, which he slid across the long metal table in Steve’s direction, “which you’ll be able to find in there. I’ll give you a few hours or so to acquaint yourself with them, and then the game will start. Do you understand?”

Reaching out and stopping the sliding book before it slid off the table, Stave stopped it with one hand and was silent for a long moment. “And if I refuse to play?” He asked finally, looking up from the cover of the book and staring at the man in a challenging manner.

The man lifted an eyebrow. “Then all your friends will die very slowly and very painfully in front of your eyes,” he said plainly. “And then I’ll kill you last.”

Steve was silent.

“I’ll leave you to study,” The man said, standing with two hands soon grasped around a silver cane. Steve watched as he went, one hand still on the book, and the door slid open upwards automatically with a _swish_ as the old man tapped it with the tip of the cane. The man began to leave, and Steve resisted the urge to jump out after him—knowing he couldn’t possibly get there in time.

Instead, “Wait.”

The man turned.

“Who _are_ you?”

The man paused. “I am many,” he said eventually, before his steely gaze locked on Steve’s own, “but you may call me Mister Alpha.”

And Steve was alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to deadfish, DrZebra, and the mysterious guest for leaving kudos! :3

**Author's Note:**

> Sup, AO3! :D M'name's Fleet. This is a pretty dark Avengers Story I've been working on for quiiiiite a while. As it's... mostly already done, I'll be updating daily. :3 I hope to hear from you all~
> 
> *Salutes*  
> -Fleet


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